Born to Cook: The Foie Gras Generation

By WILLIAM L. HAMILTON

Published: August 8, 2001

WHY did the French chef use one egg in a cake?

''Because it was an oeuf,'' said Brandon Leeds, 8, delivering the punch line. Brandon, wearing a Quiksilver T-shirt and a Calphalon chef's apron, was waiting to go on -- not at stand-up school, but at Culinary Camp, an intensive five-day cooking program for children ages 8 to 11 at Sur La Table, a specialty cookware store in Manhasset, N.Y. Stephanie Hersh, Brandon's instructor, was Julia Child's personal assistant for 12 years.

The assignment last Wednesday, after two days of knife training and baking technique, was roasted honey-butter chicken, rice with apricots and basic garde-manger: carved melon peacocks. Brandon, with his mother, already makes tarte Tatin at home.

Baby vegetables have met their match -- junior chefs.

They were a novelty even a few years ago, with the appearance of young cooks like Justin Miller, who at age 7 was the author of ''Cooking With Justin.'' Justin created cheesecakes on David Letterman and other shows in 1997 to plug the book. Now children are becoming a serious phenomenon in the fine cooking industry. Professional schools and cookware companies, specialty stores and celebrity chefs are catering to them as young adults interested in food, with hands-on classes, high-quality pots and pans, books and television programming, not with homemaker toys, baby-sitting sessions or snack-pack recipes. At 11, Justin is at work on his second book, ''Break an Egg.'' He is also the spokesman for Ragu Express, a new microwave pasta.

All-Clad, one of the titans of gourmet cookware, is introducing professional pots and pans for children next year. Chicago Metallic and Kaiser Bakeware introduced professional bakeware for children in January. Sunbeam has a new espresso-machine-style appliance that makes hot chocolate for children.

Web sites like www.kidscook.com feature original recipes by chefs like Rick Bayless and Martin Yan. Chicago Metallic's Web site, www.kidzbakingklub.com, which first appeared in January, was visited 40,000 times last month.

Retailers themselves, like Sur La Table and the Complete Kitchen, with two stores in Connecticut, are increasingly dedicating store space to children's selections, with attendant cooking school programs that typically sell out within a day of being announced. Sur La Table has 21 stores nationally, 10 with cooking programs for children.

''A lot of people in the housewares market are taking notice of the kids' market,'' said Brian Samuelson, president of Kaiser Bakeware, who said he expected Kinder Bakeware, its children's line, to make up 10 percent of the company's sales, which were $50 million worldwide in 2000. ''Families are doing more activities together, and cooking is one of them.''

Peter Cameron, chief executive of All-Clad, concurred. ''What titillated us is that cooking has become such a recreational activity,'' he said. ''It became obvious that there is a group of young people coming into that environment. The question was, how do you access that? We're not talking about toys, but really functional cookware -- sized to children.''

Smaller companies like Small World Toys, with a line of children's whisks, sauté pans, pastry crimpers, skimmers and stockpots called Café Play, are also trying to fit smaller handles to smaller hands. Kids Cooking Kits is working with Crate & Barrel, Target and Starbucks to assess the sales potential. Nancy Reynolds, Kids Cooking Kits' founder and chief executive, said that she is now routinely approached at gourmet products trade shows by large food brands like Kraft and General Mills, eager for help in breaking into the junior chef market.

Celebrity chefs are lowering their sights as well. Emeril Lagasse, the Food Network star who cooked with the Muppets on a television special in April, ''Elmo's Magic Cookbook,'' and whose own audience includes a conspicuous number of children, has bitten the bullet and written a children's cookbook, ''Emeril's There's a Chef in My Soup,'' to be published in March. The initial print run will be a quarter of a million copies.

''In terms of cooking as a high-profile activity, there's a growing interest in popular culture, and that includes children,'' said Kate Jackson, editor in chief of children's books at HarperCollins, Mr. Lagasse's publisher. ''Kids go out to eat more; they're exposed to all the things adults are. Children are more sophisticated across the board. We see it in all areas of our publishing.''

Mario Batali, also a Food Network star, said he receives ''tons'' of letters from children, including a request for advice on béchamel from a 9-year-old, and he expects to create children's programming with his own two sons in two years, when they reach the prime-time ages of 5 and 7.

Because of a growing sophistication in the national palate, and because of television and the Internet, children have a wider exposure to the popularity of food and cooking than ever before.

Rick Smilow, president of Peter Kump's New York Cooking School, said, ''My 7-year-old can identify a mango in a supermarket. When I was 7, I'd probably never seen a mango in my life.'' Peter Kump's gives children's classes, including a four-day Cooking Camp for Tweens for $415. The school has just added a children's course in brioche and croissant making.